More than 1,400 fleeing inmates from the Owerri Custodial Centre in Imo State and the Kuje Medium Custodial Centre in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, have yet to be recaptured after the jailbreaks.
Two years after the attack on the Owerri custodial centre, 864 fleeing inmates have yet to be recaptured as sighted by our correspondent on the Ministry of Interior’s website on Friday.
The custodial centre was attacked by gunmen on April 5, 2021, who forcefully released a total of 1,844 inmates in custody.
However, the profiles of the inmates could not be viewed properly to ascertain if any of the 864 inmates had been recaptured.
Also, a year and five months after the attack on the Kuje custodial centre, over 500 fleeing inmates are still at large.
Their names, images and prison identification numbers of the fleeing inmates who were declared wanted were visible and sighted on the website of the Nigerian Correctional Service on Friday.
It was indicated on the website that a total of 543 fleeing inmates were still at large, while 30 escapees had so far been recaptured.
The PUNCH had earlier reported that over 900 inmates, including 64 high-profile Boko Haram terrorists, fled the facility during a jailbreak on July 5, 2022. Security operatives then launched a manhunt after which 421 of them were recaptured.
The Federal Government, however, uploaded others’ data to the database of the International Criminal Police Organisation.
Speaking with Saturday PUNCH, the NCoS spokesperson, Umar Abubakar, said measures were being deployed to track down fleeing inmates, noting that the attacks were unfortunate incidents that the service has since nipped in the bud.
“At the moment, we have deployed different measures in recapturing fleeing inmates such as the use of technological gadgets in tracking them. So far, we have recaptured a good number of the escapees, and we have deployed overt and covert measures to track down those still at large.”
Also, a security expert and the Chief Executive Officer of Beacon Consulting Limited, Kabir Adamu, stated that the purpose of using custodial centres to serve as a deterrent to criminals had started losing its aim.
